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The Headlines in Horror: OMFG It’s Halloween Edition
If you hadn’t noticed already, it’s Halloween! There are things that make Halloween the kickass holiday that it is: there’s candy, crisp autumn weather, scary movies, haunted houses, and now it’s alright to walk around the house dressed as a baby, because all you have to say is it’s your Halloween costume! Or maybe that’s just me? Anyways, there is at least one more thing that makes this holiday great, and that’s all the great new announcements for fans of survival horror video games.
There have been a ton of new announcements recently including some news on the upcoming sequel to one of my favorite games of last year, Dead Space, and when we can expect to see it on retail shelves. There’s also been the possible leakage of not one but two possible DLC packs for the soon to be released Left 4 Dead 2. But that’s not all, after the jump I discuss the surprisingly unsuccessful debut of Dead Space: Extraction on the Wii, the real Mercy Hospital gets reviewed by Left 4 Dead fans, and the bizarre new Halloween-themed trailer for Army of Two: The 40th Day. Dead Space Sequel Coming in 2010?
There have been a handful of juicy Dead Space 2 rumors floating about lately, but in a recent article on Reuters they say quite clearly that “Dead Space 2 is in development for next year.” There’s really no way to misinterpret the way that’s written, so if it’s true, and I’m sure it is, gamers will finally be getting the sequel we’ve wanted since the original.
If you happened to miss the other times this game has popped up, let’s play a quick game of catch up: earlier this year Pratik Patel (the Technical Director for Dead Space) mentioned the game on his LinkedIn profile. A few months later Variety let even more drool-worthy info out by saying not only Dead Space 2, but Dead Space 3 as well are being developed simultaneously. Then, just last month Visceral Games (previously EA Redwood Shores, the makers of Dead Space) started asking around for developers to work on the Dead Space franchise on Xbox 360 and PS3.
So it’s pretty much confirmed: Dead Space 2, and possibly Dead Space 3 are on the way with the former having an admittedly wide release date of next year (though you can probably expect it to hit in the fall).
Source: Reuters.com
Dead Space is Dead to Wii Owners
Speaking of Dead Space, not everything’s roses and mutilated corpses for the franchise as its newest outing Dead Space: Extraction has failed miserably in sales, despite being totally awesome. Apparently, the game sold a whopping 9,000 copies in its first two days of release, and for those of us who aren’t terribly sales savvy: that’s not very good.
I’ve never been a big fan of horror titles on the Wii, I’ve never been able to really get into them the same way I do with horror titles on the 360 and PS3, but Extraction is definitely one of the best on the console. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to matter as there just isn’t a very large audience on the Wii that are into the genre. My guess is they’re too busy getting healthy with all those fitness games and wand waggling.
Left 4 Dead Fans Get Witty
There are very few times that I’m given a reason to be genuinely proud of the gaming community, primarily because it seems like fanboys and homophobic twelve year-olds make up a majority of the gaming population. This not only made me proud, but was actually quite funny: anyone who’s played Left 4 Dead knows about Mercy Hospital, which is a fictional location in the game’s No Mercy campaign. Well, it seems there’s a real Mercy Hospital located in Pittsburgh, and several gamers have exploited that fact for some witty banter. Several Left 4 Dead fans have taken the time to review the unsuspecting hospital, some of the highlights including:
Review by FrancisSilverman:
You know what I don’t hate? I don’t hate vests.
• Pros: I hate doctors!
• Cons: I’m getting tired of these damn vampires!
Review by Toshinden:
I went to this hospital to have my chronic headaches treated or at least diagnosed. Upon entering, I asked the receptionist for some help. Instead, she lept over the counter and started clawing at me. But there just happen to be some guns on the seats. I sadly had to kill her in self defense. Knowing the cops were soon to follow, I proceeded to go up. I wasn’t thinking, just going up. On the way up, I had faced many disgruntled patients and workers. One patient was polite enough to vomit all over me. While I was blinded, his posse (i am assuming he is a gang leader of sorts) started running at me and beating me. After successfully escaping, my headaches have only gotten worse. After consuming large amounts of pills, I stumbled my way onto the roof, where a man possibly being treated for a steroid overdose was waiting for me. After tossing me off the building, I almost lost my life. I was thankfully recovered by some strange African American man claiming to have his pills. I am home safe now. But no amount of pills and medpacks will cure my emotional and physical pain.
• Pros: The pills were here.
• Cons: So was the tank.
See, gamers can be awesome too when they’re not fighting over which console is the best. (I’d provide a link to the reviews, but this news isn’t terribly fresh so they’ve all been taken down.)
Multiple Left 4 Dead 2 DLC packs in the works?
A few highly sharp-eyed fans have found the names of two possible DLC packs embedded in the code of the L4D2 PC demo. Those two packs are called Apocalyptic Pack and Miracle Pack, and both sound more than a little interesting. They’re assumed to be DLC because of the error messages found in the code that get displayed when a player is booted out of a multiplayer lobby for not having the required DLC.
So, dear reader: what do you think these are? Nothing’s been confirmed yet, but if it’s true then Valve’s already got quite a bit of new content in store for L4D2 owners.
Source: Rage3d.com
Army of Two Gets All Bizarre On Your Ass.
Ok, I’m all for special Halloween-themed trailers, but I just don’t understand this new trailer for the upcoming Army of Two: The 40th Day. In it some poor, innocent kid is at his computer probably doing homework or trying to find a cure for his father who’s dying of cancer, and the two guys from Army of Two come up behind him and start asking for stuff. The kid quickly gives them all he has including his computer mouse (how’s he going to look up cures now?) and the two leave and start shooting the stuff that probably cost this kid a year’s allowance and money saved up from mowing lawns. Ok, maybe I’ve added a bit more backstory than what’s shown in the trailer, but I just don’t understand the point of this ad. More like Army of Douche, if you ask me, but watch it and decide for yourself.
So am I missing something, or are you as baffled as I am?
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
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